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Forum:Style Guide?
Mnenyver suggested that we put together a style guide. I think it's a good idea, especially if Phil and Kaja decide to link to us. So, what do we need? I was thinking a collection of templates, a summary of categories, and maybe an example article, to give the general idea of a page. This assumes that we have one format or list of sections (I'm thinking of character pages in particular, here) that we prefer. Do we? I like how Corgi wrote the article on Klaus, with less emphasis on the 'what happened' and more on his role in the story and character attributes. But it isn't the only way to do things. Thoughts? -Evaneyreddeman 17:43, 3 March 2008 (UTC) :I know graybeard had some plans for a style guide -- there's mention of it on his sandbox page right now. But yeah, example articles would be great. We just need some simple, clear guidelines on what we're going for. Friendly and flexible and open to being changed. Things I'd like to see included (in addition to E's notes above): how to write with a neutral voice, providing sources, and how to separate real world stuff and speculation from in-world stuff. We also need reminders of stuff that's Totally Not Cool Dontdoitplz. And seconded on the Klaus article, but then I'm kinda biased. :D --mnenyver 01:28, 4 March 2008 (UTC) (Edit: Have I mentioned lately how much I love you guys?) ::Just got back from out of town. Check the progress of User:Graybeard/Sandbox, as I'll be working on a style guide there. -- that old bearded guy 02:39, 4 March 2008 (UTC) :I'm now at about the 70% completion stage with what I had planned in the style guide. However, "what I had planned" is not necessarily the same thing as "what is needed." The comments above are helpful, and let me specifically ask for one more bit of help: Could you folks nominate some good examples of "people" articles, "place" articles, and "things" articles that can be added to the text? On the "people" front, I'm kinda pleased (if I do say so myself...) at how the Zeetha article looks, but there may be better. On the others, the floor is open for discussion. -- that old bearded guy 15:02, 7 March 2008 (UTC) ::I'm a big fan of what Corgi and Mnenyver put together on Baron Klaus Wulfenbach. As for things...I like the Kolee-dok-Zumil article a lot (that one yours, Graybeard?) -Evaneyreddeman 15:12, 7 March 2008 (UTC) ::My favorite articles, in no particular order: Zeetha and the one on koolaid-dot-zooberwhatsit, Klaus, Castle Heterodyne, Smilin' Stev (how anyone could find enough info to fill four paragraphs on this background char/device astonishes me), Jägermonster, Throne of Faustus Heterodyne. --mnenyver 16:14, 7 March 2008 (UTC) :::As I was assembling the draft MoS, I discovered a problem in using the (excellent) Castle Heterodyne article to illustrate articles on "Places," namely, that article treats the castle as a Character rather than a Place, with the Character infobox included, etc. That's entirely reasonable for that particular article -- the castle certainly is a character, in more ways than one -- but it makes for a less than satisfactory example of a Place article. Got a preference for a more clearly Place-ish one? -- that old bearded guy 16:26, 9 March 2008 (UTC) ::::How about Skifander? --mnenyver 13:05, 10 March 2008 (UTC) Consensus on Article Names What about more consistency in the way articles are named? I feel like we're all over the place. We've got some character articles named the way they're usually referred to in the comic, some with titles, some without, some with last names, some not. We've got "The Heterodyne Boys" and "The Muses" (my preference), but "Storm King" (which is never used without "The"). There's "Calming Pie" and "Spark Roast" (my preference), but "Slaver wasps" and "Death ray". The one named just "Locket" bugs me too. Anyways, the whole thing just seems rather muddy. (I don't mind being the one to go around fixing names and links, by the way.) --mnenyver 16:39, 7 March 2008 (UTC) :To me there are two basic principles that should guide article names. First, the article name should make it as easy as possible for the reader to find the article, and also, for the article to be included in wikilinks in other articles. Second, and sometimes in agreement with principle #1 and sometimes in tension with it, if the article parallels something discussed in the Girl Genius Complete List of Absolutely Everybody! (the "GGCLAE"), the name given to the thing in the GGCLAE should be used here. That's because the GGCLAE will be used by many readers (and wikiauthors) to get the basics on a character before coming here. :I'd vote for the following principles: * Suppress leading articles unless they're significant in the name or used in the GGCLAE (e.g. "The Unstoppable Higgs"); * First word in titles of articles about "things" should be capitalized -- the wikimarkup will do that anyway, and not care if wikilinks to the article don't have initial capitals. Subsequent words in the title should not be capitalized unless the title is a proper name. :Therefore: :*"The Heterodyne Boys" because that's the way GGCLAE has it; :*"Storm King" for brevity (rule 1) and because GGCLAE doesn't have a section on this guy; :*"Calming pie" because that's the way it will most often appear in wikilinks; :*"Spark Roast" because it's a proper name (coffee brand); :*"Slaver wasps" and "Death ray" because they'll appear that way in wikilinks. : Of course there should be redirects for all of the above so that non-compliant names don't create problems. Does this seem right? -- that old bearded guy 17:02, 7 March 2008 (UTC) ::I'd argue that "The Storm King" fits the same criteria for significance as "The Heterodyne Boys" or "The Muses". It's part of the name/phrase and not really optional. (It's never "a Storm King".) As far as the others go, those links would almost always have to be written as -- calming pie anyway. Since the only other times they appear without the change is in the title of articles or in category listings, both words should be capitalized. Anyways, I'd like some other grammar nuts to weigh in on this too. --mnenyver 17:22, 7 March 2008 (UTC) :::Actually, calming pie doesn't have to be written using the tee in the wikilink; the software is smart enough to apply the initial capital and make the link work. (Here: calming pie. See? ;-)) The same is true for other, similar titles. The initial capitalization, however, is the only one that the software makes for you; Spark roast, for example, does not automatically point to the Spark Roast article. As for "The Storm King," I don't have strong feelings on that one, but I suspect that more people will do searches for "Storm King" than for "The Storm King", so I'd prefer to omit the "The"; the GGCLAE doesn't have an entry for him justifying it, unlike The Heterodyne Boys. -- that old bearded guy 17:31, 7 March 2008 (UTC) :::I like using double capitals (Calming Pie), because I find it more aesthetically pleasing. It looks more balanced to me. But we would need to use redirects to make (calming pie) point to (Calming Pie), because it's obnoxious to try and remember all the capitals. I suppose for two-word titles we could capitalize both words, but for long titles we could just capitazlize the first word and proper names. Does that seem like a good rule? (And while I think that THE Storm King makes for a better sounding title (since it is pretty much always used with the article), Graybeard makes a good point. Storm King is easier and more logical to search for. Isn't it? Plus it feels a little more intutive to write Storm King than to write The Storm King. -Evaneyreddeman 17:41, 7 March 2008 (UTC) :::I forgot about automatic redirects. That still doesn't answer the issue of titles and category listings. It's not that much work to make a redirect if we have to. I do feel pretty strongly about "The Storm King", though. (What about people searching for all instances of "storm king"?) --mnenyver 17:47, 7 March 2008 (UTC) I think this needs to be brought up again - we have four pages which are sorting and redirecting to titles rather than names, and I've held off moving them and recreating the redirects without consensus on this. The pages in question are on Madame Olga, and the three Jaegergenerals; shouldn't they be merely 'Olga', 'Goomblast', Khrizhan' and 'Zog', with redirects or diambiguation pages? Corgi 02:56, 10 March 2008 (UTC) : I believe that all of the stuff above was superseded by one simple rule: call characters what the GGCLAE calls them. That's why the nascent MoS was changed too. -- that old bearded guy 03:14, 10 March 2008 (UTC) ::I prefer "Madame Olga" and "General Goomblast", but that's just me. For these characters, it seems more like the title is part of their identity. --mnenyver 03:48, 10 March 2008 (UTC) Superantidisamguationalisms ::On a slightly different angle, do my antidisambiguation pages please y'all? -- Zarchne 19:22, 7 March 2008 (UTC) :::You mean the category entries for Agatha and Klaus, redundant with the ones on Agatha Heterodyne and Baron Klaus Wulfenbach? I don't think it's necessary. -Evaneyreddeman 20:22, 7 March 2008 (UTC) ::::I'm not convinced, (my best example is that I think "Boris" should be listed under B, but the formal page "Boris Dolokhov" should be listed under D) but Mnenyver didn't like it either, so I'm trying out "Nicknames". — Zarchne 00:39, 8 March 2008 (UTC) :::I don't understand what problem these (both anti-disamb and the Nicknames category) solve. They just seem like unnecessary bells and whistles. My temptation would be to write this off as a failed experiment; even a has those... -- that old bearded guy 01:01, 8 March 2008 (UTC) After much going around in circles on IRC with Zarchne, I finally figured out what the heck he meant by this. I think I can translate (:D) -- He saw a problem: most new people, wanting to look up "Agatha" or "Boris" or "Klaus" would look under A, B, or K, respectively, and wouldn't immediately glance at H, D, or W. My suggestion to him was a subcategory of redirect pages, listed alpha by first name, which I think he plans on using instead. --mnenyver 02:10, 8 March 2008 (UTC) :Meh. I'm still not convinced these meet the "what problem needs solving here?" test, and would still prefer to skip this complexity, but it's not a fall-on-my-sword issue, so ... -- that old bearded guy 02:37, 8 March 2008 (UTC) :: It may not be necessary, but if it's something he wants to do on his own, it can't hurt. --mnenyver 02:54, 8 March 2008 (UTC) :: The creation of non-disambiguation (anti- or super-) pages is/was/would be precisely an effort to provide a tertium quid solution to the lack of consensus (or need for absolute consistency) on article naming discussed above. The idea is that there are standard names which are not necessarily the preferred page titles, and this can be documented with distinguished REDIRECT pages (distinguished by placing in categories). Obviously you three find it a non-solution. (I can roll back the Zeetha move, too, if you want...) — Zarchne 03:51, 8 March 2008 (UTC) :::One of my old hobbies was coding for text-based games. They presented fun challenges in trying to figure out how to do clean, attractive, friendly, intuitive UIs. One of the side jobs was creating directory trees of help and info files. Going on my personal experience, I'd say the longer file names create a better presentation. It doesn't hurt anything to use "Zeetha" within an article and let that redirect to "Zeetha, Daughter of Chump". The latter is only seen at the top of the article itself and in the Category listings. In both locations, the longer name is more appropriate anyway. Just my 2 Wulfenbucks. --mnenyver 05:02, 8 March 2008 (UTC) :::: I concur. I don't, however, see why they need a category of their very own, since looking for a surname is not really a hardship, and if (as with, say, Boris) people don't necessarily know the surname, we have a perfectly good searchbox, and just the redirects' existence will point people where they want to go. -Acacia 05:23, 8 March 2008 (UTC) :::::The redirects will point people somewhere, but not necessarily to where they want to go. Laying aside for the moment the specific Zeetha question and the debate over "standard" and "preferred" titles, I think there are a very few terms that are better served by having Wikipedia-style disambiguation pages rather than simple redirects. The most obvious one is "Heterodyne," but there will eventually be others. -- that old bearded guy 15:26, 8 March 2008 (UTC) Ready for the unveiling OK, my first cut at the MoS is complete at the 95% level -- that is, I've written about 95% of what I intended to write on it. That doesn't mean the it's right at the 95% level. Please go to User:Graybeard/Sandbox and bleed all over it; when things stabilize there, we can move it to an MoS page. -- that old bearded guy 16:15, 9 March 2008 (UTC) :It's gone live! See Girl Genius:Manual of Style and the associated talk page. There's still a tiny bit of empty space, and of course improvements are always possible (and encouraged). I do suggest working out any additional sections in the talk page before putting them in the MoS itself. -- that old bearded guy 02:57, 15 March 2008 (UTC) ::Woot! Make sure to add it to Category:Help, Girl Genius:Community Portal, and . --mnenyver 03:37, 15 March 2008 (UTC)